Report: Social Security disability fund could dry up in 2016

WASHINGTON - The government says people who receive Social Security disability face steep benefit cuts next year unless Congress acts.

In a report Wednesday, the trustees that oversee Social Security said the disability trust fund will run out of money in 2016, right in the middle of a presidential campaign.

That would trigger an automatic 19 percent cut in benefits.

Congress could shift tax revenue from Social Security's much larger retirement fund. But Republicans say they want changes in the program to reduce fraud and to encourage disabled workers to re-enter the work force.

The trustees said the retirement fund has enough money to pay full benefits until 2035, a year later than last year's reports.

Medicare's giant hospital trust fund is projected to be exhausted in 2030.